SkyWatcher 20" Dob at the Sydney Astrofest

[Adox (Adriano)]

SkyWatcher will participate to the Sydney Astrofest on the 30th of July 2016.

Here the link of the event: http://www.caastro.org/event/2016-sydastrofest16

I will be there with the 20" SkyWatcher Dobson, I hope to have a great weather and seeing to show the potential of this telescope!

[Atmos (Colin)]

There has been a few discussions about this one on the Cloudy Nights forums, from what I have been able to ascertain, the US version seems to be a completely different animal to the UK version. The UK version seems to have been released a long time before the US version as Sky Watcher USA wanted refine it more.

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

I have seen one of these beasts in the flesh at Sirius Optics in Brisbane. Whilst I have not had the opportunity to try it out in the field so can't judge its optical quality, I can say that I was pretty impressed buy the build quality. Much better engineered than I expected and certainly looked as though it would make a great "ultra-portable".

One thing that always disappoints me about Skywatcher Dobs though is the lack of secondary dew heater. The 20 inch was no exception and it defies logic why a dob of this cost and open tube nature would come without one!

I have had to eat my metaphoric had since they were announced - I was sure that there would never be a 'mass produced' 20 incher! What I am waiting for is the 14" using the same design, now that will be a fantastic toy to take away on holiday.

[gaseous (Patrick)]

Originally Posted by Atmos

There has been a few discussions about this one on the Cloudy Nights forums, from what I have been able to ascertain, the US version seems to be a completely different animal to the UK version. The UK version seems to have been released a long time before the US version as Sky Watcher USA wanted refine it more.

Pardon my ignorance, but does Australia receive the US version or the UK version? Or another version entirely? I was under the impression they all came from the same factory. From memory, what I read on the CN forum suggested the UK version possibly wasn't up to the same quality level as the US version (1-2 years ago at least). And as Astrojunk said, a 14" (or even 16") in this design would sell like hot cakes I would assume.

[Atmos (Colin)]

Originally Posted by gaseous

Pardon my ignorance, but does Australia receive the US version or the UK version? Or another version entirely? I was under the impression they all came from the same factory. From memory, what I read on the CN forum suggested the UK version possibly wasn't up to the same quality level as the US version (1-2 years ago at least). And as Astrojunk said, a 14" (or even 16") in this design would sell like hot cakes I would assume.

I have no idea which one we get, I know the US version was released quite some time after the UK version as they wanted to make it better. This is going by a thread on CN where Sky Watcher USA was discussing why it hadn't been released in the US but it was in the UK.

From what I can gather, they are in some respects different entities.

[AG Hybrid (Adrian)]

"Ultra-Portable". Its made of steel. I think what you meant was ultra compact.